According to a recent online survey conducted by EPG Media, physicians in the United States are almost twice as likely to own a smartphone as European physicians. The EPG survey of more than 300 physicians found that around 81 percent of US physicians currently own a smartphone, only 44 percent of European doctors do. In a blog post on the research company's site, the researchers point out that their figure of 81 percent is where Manhattan Research predicted smartphone adoption would be among US physicians in 2012. The most recent data from Manahattan (which polls significantly more MDs for its survey: 2,000+) pegs the current smartphone adoption rate at just north of 72 percent of US doctors.

Interestingly, EPG's survey predicts that European physicians are eager to switch over to smartphones: While the current adoption is around 44 percent, the firm predicts that will jump to 65 percent adoption within the next six months.

According to EPG's blog post:

There are currently over 250,000 apps available for download from the Apple store and according to MobiHealthNews, in the first quarter of 2010 over 7,000 of these were health and fitness apps, with 30% designed for use by healthcare professionals and the remainder for patients or health consumers. Despite this, EPG Health Media’s research indicates that demand outstrips supply for content for HCPs via smartphone, especially in Europe.

I find it hard to believe that demand could outstrip supple of smartphone medical apps when it comes to medical reference apps and the like, but I do agree that operational applications -- like those that provide remote access to electronic medical records (what physicians seem to really want to do with their smartphones) is still a wide open opportunity.

For more, be sure to visit EPG's site here